Oral Historian: Howard Golladay

Interview Date: 17 June 2006

Interviewer: Angela Nemecek

Would you state your full name?

Howard Overton Golladay.

What is your birth date?

September 30, 1917

So you were in the Army, correct?

Right, yes.

And your rank was Colonel?

Yes.

How did you come to enlist in the Army?

Well, I graduated from VMI in 1939. I was commissioned a second lieutenant in the Reserves, U.S. Army. Later on I had my Reserve commission changed to regular Army, and that established my career in the regular Army.

And so where were you living when you entered the Army?

Lynchburg, Virginia

Did you plan on having a military career after going to VMI?

I don't know whether I planned on it, but I was very interested in it, though. When the opportunity arose, I eagerly applied.

What do you remember about your first days?

My first days? Well, I was assigned to Ft. Meyer, Virginia, as a member of the 16th Field Artillery, which was a horse unit. My first days, I remember mostly riding - taking courses in equitation, taught by experienced officers who were there. And trying to figure out what I was supposed to do because no one could have been more unfamiliar with what the Army needed or required than I was at that time.

Wow, so you were riding horses a lot?

Yes, for several years.

Did you have to go to boot camp or were you already trained?

I was already trained at VMI.

Where did you go when the war started?

I entered into active duty in 1940. In 1941, the 16th Field Artillery was transferred to Fort Riley, Kansas, as part of the horse division, the 2nd Cavalry Division. We remained there as the horse cavalry division for about two years. The division was deactivated, and the 9th Armor Division was formed in its place. And we trained at Fort Riley for about one year. Then we moved to the California desert, Mojave Desert, Camp Ibis, I believe it was called. And we were there for about 8 months, from March to November 1943, on desert maneuvers and operations. And then we moved to Fort Polk, Louisiana, for winter maneuvers during the winter of 1943. In April 1944, the division was designated for shipment to Europe. So we spent the next two-three months preparing for the deployment to Europe, and finally it was September 1944, some months after D-Day, we embarked on the Queen Mary (about 15,000 troops) from New York to Scotland and then by train later to Southern England. We stayed there about 30 days because we didn't take any heavy equipment with us: no tanks, no half-tracks, no guns or anything except for our personal weapons. All that stuff had been stockpiled in Britain, and so we drew out all that equipment and of course all that had to be cleaned and tested and prepared for action. And so that's what kept us busy in England until about October of 1944. Then we went from there by LST (landing ship, tank) to France - I think we landed on Omaha Beach but, of course, by that time everything was quiet. You would never had known a battle had taken place there.

So we worked our way from the coast of France to the eastern part of France where the conflict was going on at that time. The advance across France had been almost to the German border. My battalion and division ended up in Luxembourg on the German border and that's where our first contact with the enemy occurred - where we first started combat operations.

When did you start actual combat?

That would have been sometime in late October 1944 - I'm not sure of the date.

So what was that like when combat started?

Well, it was a new experience certainly. It was a relatively quiet front, and so there wasn't a lot of activity. We were in a defensive mode, and so there weren't any offensive operations going on except for scouting and reconnaissance and that sort of thing. But we were just back of the Siegfried Line, which is in Germany and we were in Luxembourg at the German border. Our unit stayed more or less in that position until, I guess, December, and then we started moving around. The tank battalions were moved north to the Luxembourg border with Germany and the armored infantry - we were supporting tanks and armored infantry with field artillery. We moved around a bit but did stay in the general area until December 16th when the Bulge (sic Battle of the Bulge) started. On December 16th, the Germans started heavy shelling of the area we were in. And that's when we started deploying in a different area to support the tank and infantry battalions that were defending against the German offense. And we worked our way gradually north as the battle continued and we had a better or strong response against the German offensive. We ended up part of the force that freed Bastogne. If you remember, Bastogne was surrounded during the war. -the 101st Airborne Division had major elements there. So General Patton was moved from the south and led an offensive operation to free Bastogne, and we became part of that operation. We were there until after Christmas - I can't remember just when ---probably around New Year's when we withdrew because a sister battalion to our battalion lost a lot of people. Most of their headquarters people-- battalion commander, executive officer, and all of their staff-- were captured.

So after the division was withdrawn from combat for recuperation and to be reequipped because we lost a lot of tanks and other vehicles, I was transferred from the battalion I was in to the one that had lost all of its headquarters as its operations officer. So I stayed with that battalion -- I don't know if you are interested in numbers, but I went from the 3rd Armored Field Artillery Division to the 73rd Armored Field Artillery Division.

I was a battery commander in the 3rd Armored Field Artillery Division and an assistant operations officer. And when they reformed the 73rd Armored Field Artillery Division, I was transferred to that as the operations officer, and I was in charge of all firing and planning and that type of thing for the battalion. And I stayed in that position until the end of the war in May of 1945.

So that sounds like it was a lot of responsibility…

Well, it was a key job and essential, and every battalion has one of those. It all revolves around that one officer as far as the firing and control fires and that type of thing - responding to it. And requests for our support.

Were you injured at all?

No, I never suffered any injury.

Were you awarded any medals?

I was awarded the Bronze Star from the 3rd Field Artillery for meritorious service and a Bronze Star for meritorious service from the 73rd Armored Field Artillery Battalion.

As the Operations Officer of the 3rd Field Artillery, were you in charge of planning?

Yes, planning, organization, training, and operations all come within the duties of the S-3, which is a staff job. There's a commanding officer, an executive officer, S-1, personnel; S-2, intelligence; S-3, operations; and S-4, logistics.

I want to ask a few questions about life in the military. How did you stay in touch with your family throughout this time?

Well, I was a bachelor during all that time. Mail, V-mail. Have you ever heard of V-Mail? I'm not exactly sure how it worked, but if you wrote a letter in longhand on a piece of paper, it got to some postal unit where they would photograph it into a much smaller thing and on much lighter paper. And that would be sent to the recipient. But mail coming to me all came through as normal mail. So I wrote letters occasionally to my mother and the rest of the family during that period. I probably didn't write as many times as I should have, according to them, but I was pretty busy.

Why did they do that with the V-mail?

Well, because of bulk. A 3- or 4-page letter, weighing a couple of ounces, could be reduced to something weighing a tenth of an ounce in weight and save space. I don't know if any mail was shipped by air but I'm sure some of it was. You know, there wasn't a lot of transatlantic flights in those days - some. I suppose V-mail went by air because it was so light, but anything other than that went by ship and that took about ten days by the time you mailed it until it got to its destination.

What was the food like?

Food? Terrible! Everything came out of a can or a package, and well, we got used to it. We had two types of field rations, I mean, individual rations: K-rations, which came in an individual box, and C-rations, which were canned. Since we were in a vehicle all of the time, we could carry a lot of this stuff. And so we always had spare C-rations and K-rations if we fought out away from any place where there was warm food. We had a lot of that, too-we were moving a lot and kitchens didn't have time to set up. They had big stoves and gas things that they needed to get level, fire up, and cook all the food - well, whatever came out of a can. But we had hot food, I'm sure once a day, sometimes twice a day.

Did you ever have trouble getting supplies in?

No. Our main problems, I mean, concerns were ammunition and gasoline. And I guess food was sort of a third one, but we had a lot of canned stuff and so food was not a real big problem for us as far as emergencies were concerned. But gasoline and ammunition were big items because they were heavy, and we required great quantities of them. We all went into battle with a basic load prescribed as so many rounds of ammunition and so many gallons of gasoline in your vehicles plus what's behind you in a service unit. But when you start into combat, ammunition goes at hundreds of rounds per hour, and if you only had 1500 rounds to start, then in one day, you would be out of ammunition. But we never ran out of ammunition - we had artillery shells (105 mm), which weighed, it seemed like, about 40 lbs per round.

So was that transported in a service vehicle?

Yes, in a truck, a ten-and-a-half-ton truck. In a battalion, you had a lot of rounds on the vehicle. The armored artillery consists of a tank with the top cut off, opened up, and a 105 mm Howitzer mounted in the open space. And there were places around the sides to store ammunition. We could carry about 50 rounds on the vehicle, and we had trailers behind most of the vehicles, carrying 300-400 rounds.

Was there anything you did for good luck when you were going into battle?

No, I don't remember anything like that.

Was it very stressful?

Well, there were times, yes. The stresses were usually caused by what the enemy was doing. If we were under heavy shelling, then the stress was that you worried about your men. I had 130 some men in my battery and tried to make sure that they didn't get subjected to any unnecessary risk and to keep them safe because it was a major concern. But they all knew their jobs and were trained and so it was not something that worried me too much. But it was stressful when there was heavy shelling.

Were there a lot of casualties - you said not really in the first battalion you were assigned to, but what about the 73rd Armored Artillery?

During the Ardennes offensive and the Battle of the Bulge (3rd Armored Field Artillery), we had quite a few wounded people. I'm sure there were some killed in action, but I can't remember the numbers. In the 73rd, I don't think I had any casualties in my Hqs unit, but I can't speak for the whole battalion. I don't know, but not many anyway.

What did people do for entertainment when you were between battles or sort of waiting?

Well, you used the time washing your clothes, taking a bath, or cleaning up your vehicles and things like that. We didn't have a radio and so didn't have any outside contact. I don't ever remember seeing a newspaper. The Stars and Stripes, I guess, got to some people, but it never got down to us at the battalion level.

I don't know - I can't remember having time for anything like that really. So I can't answer that.

Were you on leave at some point during all of this?

No.

So it was pretty continuous from the time you were deployed?

It was 24 hours a day, every day.

So you said that you spent your time, once you went overseas, in England, and then you were on the border between France and Germany before moving north. Did you go anywhere else?

Well, in the early part of January 1945, after the Bulge was defeated, we went into Germany. My division entered Germany in the Aachen area of northwest Germany. From there, we turned south, fighting all the time, because the Germans had not given up by any means.

We got down to the Rhine River, and the unit I was with found the only bridge across the Rhine that had not been destroyed. Our infantry forces took that bridge …captured it. That was the beginning of the end of the war, you might say, because we sent across division after division across the Rhine-- a division is about 15,000 troops-established a big bridgehead and after that built pontoon bridges across the Rhine. Eventually that Remagen bridge, as it was known, collapsed. The Germans tried to blow it up. They set off explosives, but they didn't damage the bridge to the extent that it was unusable. Our engineers went through and defused all the different explosives that were there that had not been set off. It was a major point, and our division got a Presidential Unit Citation, which is a big award for a unit. It was a great thing. Whenever you mention the Bridge at Remagen to anybody, who was in Europe, they know exactly what you're talking about.

Did you keep a personal diary when you were over there?

No, no, I never thought about it. I'm sure I could have kept a diary if I'd been interested in it, but I wasn't.

So tell me about the end of combat. After you took the bridge, how long until the end?

Well, that was in March, and I think the treaty, the peace treaty was signed on and the end of the war was declared on May 8th, 1945. So it was about 6 weeks before the war ended. That was a big development ending the war.

So when were you able to return to the States?

Well, I was a bachelor - a regular Army officer-and I hadn't been in Europe very long before the war was over. So I wasn't eligible to be returned back to the States. The people who returned worked on the point basis: if you were married or had children, you go so many points. If you had been in combat for so many days or weeks, then you got points for that. Or if you had been awarded medals, then you got points for that. So that was how people were selected to return to the States. But it was a real demoralizing time because the Army sort of disintegrated over there. People were being sent home from there, and pretty soon you were down to people who were not really trained in what your unit was supposed to be doing. It was OK right after the war for maybe two months. Things were pretty stable, and then the point system started becoming effective, and people were going home. So we went from a well-organized unit to a group of people together, not really trained to accomplish what we were supposed to do.

So what were you trying to do after the war was over?

We were in the Army of Occupation. I was there for two more years in Germany. I was in a field artillery unit, another one by that time because the one I had been in was deactivated and sent home (the 73rd). I was assigned to an all-black field artillery unit - in those days there was segregation of troops. I was assigned to the 345th Field Artillery battalion which was all Negro except that many of the officers were white but all the troops were black.

We moved around quite a bit into Germany - Bavaria primarily in southern Germany. We were outside of Nuremburg in an old German casern or military post for about six months maybe, and then we were transferred to another German military post, a big training area near the Russian-American border. And I stayed there for probably over a year, and we had various duties. But the main purpose of all the Army at that time was occupation to that there was no German uprising or that the Germans didn't get out of line or do anything the peace treaty did not permit them to do. They were pretty docile as a matter of fact. They were tired of the war. They had lost millions - millions of people. The occupation was more or less a matter of survival and trying to keep your troops, our own troops, trained and ready for whatever might occur. But nothing really happened. Trying to get a field artillery into proper mode for firing - because that's our business to fire indirectly. We don't ever see the target in field artillery. You're behind a hill or something so that you are safe from enemy fire. You can support the infantry or tankers who are out front. Otherwise if you are in sight of the enemy and they are shooting at you, you can't do anything to help the soldiers you're supposed to do…to assist them. Training a unit to do that is not easy - it takes time, months really to train a unit properly. We were having trouble because the people were coming and going. We had a few disciplinary problems as well. It's not too easy.

Going back a little bit to this point system and having people get orders from Army Headquarters and everybody would say, "81 points and you are eligible to go home. So ship him to Bremerhaven or Havre or someplace to get him on the ship back to the States." So you might end up sending out all of your cooks. In a battalion you have maybe 500 some men and 2 or 3 cooks. When you all have 5 mess halls, it's better than your own mess. It caused a lot of confusion. Lot of people who had never been near a stove before turned out to be cooks. A lot of the mechanics, radio operators, and machine gunners were all gone.So you couldn't keep a proper balance?

No, there was a period there for two or three years when we were not a competent military force.

So you were there for two years after the war ended?

After the war, yes - January 1947.

Were you just notified that you finally had become eligible to go over?

Oh, well, I guess I did get orders. I don't know where they came from-probably from Army Headquarters in Heidelberg. Probably months before I was scheduled to come home and told me where to go, how many days of leave I had, and that I would be told later where my new assignment would be once I got into the States. So I went on my 30 days of leave, came to Scottsville, and stayed with my family most of that time. And then I got orders here by mail to go to Michigan. So I ended up in Jackson, Michigan.

So how long were you in Michigan?

Three years. I was an instructor with the Army National Guard unit there. I had one battalion in Jackson and one in East Lansing. So I used to go back and forth between the two armories there as a trainer, advisor, and so forth. They used to send regular Army people with the recruiters because they had a lot of government property: all their weapons, guns, and everything are provided by the federal government. They send somebody there to try and look after things, and if some action has to be taken because of loss, my position was do the proper survey work and sign the necessary papers related to the settlement.

It was a nice job. I'd never lived in a civilian community except in Scottsville before I went to Ann Arbor. So it was a new experience completely for me when I was there.

What did you think of the weather?

Well, I used to go skiing in the wintertime and so it wasn't so bad. I don't know - I never thought much about it. I was used to winters in Germany, and so it wasn't much different. Long days, no sunshine, and cold and damp…and snow.

After Michigan, did you get another assignment?

Yes. I met my wife in Jackson, and we were married there in 1950. And at the time, I had orders to Fort Sill, Oklahoma, to Field Artillery School as a student for one year. So after we married, we moved to Oklahoma where I was there for a period of time. And then after that - I was a Major at that time. I had been promoted after the war to Major. I was assigned to one of the units there that did a lot of support for the students in what they called firing exercises. The student officers would go out and sit on hilltop with a chair and the instructor, looking at a target area. The instructor would designate a target and tell him what it is. So he would have fun calling back to the firing area to give them the description and location and so on. He'd request they fire and they'd fire and he'd adjust the rounds onto the target. I was in the unit back there that was providing the shells. I was executive officer of one of the battalions.

I did that for about six months, and then I was promoted to Colonel. And shortly after that - just a week or so later, I was assigned to command a Field Artillery Battallion, which is a Lieutenant Colonel's job. And we were doing school troop duties there and then later we were ordered to Korea in 1951. I went to school from 1950 to 1951. In the Fall of 1951, I was promoted and given command of this battalion, and the battalion soon after that was ordered for shipment to Korea. And about a month later, we ended up in Korea.

So how long were you there?

About fifteen months, I guess.

Did your wife stay behind in Oklahoma or did she move?

Well, we had a baby just before I left. I think she thought many times that I deserted her with a 3 week-old baby. But she didn't understand Oklahoma, and so she went back to live with her family in Jackson. So she was there the whole time I was gone.

When I came back from Korea, I was assigned to Fort Chaffee, Arkansas. I was there for less than a year. We lived in Fort Smith, Arkansas where we had quarters on the post. And then I was sent to Command General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, as a student for one year. After that year, we were given quarters on the post at Fort Leavenworth, and I was assigned as an instructor for three years. I was working in the schools, and so I was told it was quite a plum job actually. I was there for three years, and then my next assignment was to Turkey. So my family went with me - we all went to Izmir, Turkey, where I was assigned to NATO Headquarters. Headquarters Allied Land Forces, Southeastern Europe - that's a mouthful. We were there for two years, and lived in Izmir in a rented apartment. After that in 1958, we came back - we were in Turkey from 1957-1958. And then I was assigned to Ft. Belvoir, Virginia, and I was there for many years. I was promoted to Colonel while I was there. And then I was assigned to another NATO job in Italy. So my family and I moved to Verona, Italy, where I was assigned to U.S. Army Headquarters. Southern European Task Force was the name of it, and I was a G-3. I was a S-3 but now I had a general command and so I had an G designation. I was an operations officer in this headquarters for three years. After that I was assigned to a base in Albuquerque for three years. Following that I was assigned to Philadelphia for about three years before I retired.

When I retired, my wife and I didn't want to stay in Pennsylvania where the weather was not too nice and it was getting awful crowded where we were in Philadelphia. We decided we'd store our household goods and go hunting for a place to settle down. We bought a traveling trailer and hooked it on the back of a big old farm hand I had at the time. And we went down the East Coast, stopping here and there for a few days or a week at a time as far down as Key West through the mid west and across Texas to New Mexico and across Nevada to the California coast up north of San Francisco and worked our way down the coast to San Diego where we said, "This is it!"

How long did it take you?

Oh, about eight months.

How many children did you have?

Oh, two. When we got back from Italy, my daughter had been in Switzerland in school - my older daughter --for two years. She graduated while she was there, and then she was in college in Germany for a year. Before we returned, my younger daughter was in the American Dependents School in Italy, and when we came to Albuquerque, she was in the public high school there and graduated from high school. And after that, we were moving from there to Pennsylvania about that time. My older daughter had gotten a job with Pan Am as a stewardess. So she went to work there from the time we got to New Mexico right away with Pan Am in Seattle. And my other daughter selected a small college in New York State. So we went to Pennsylvania from New Mexico and she went off to college because she'd just graduated from high school. So essentially my wife and I were all alone from that point on except for occasional visits from either daughter during vacations. She was married during her third year in college which we didn't particularly like that idea, but anyway it happened.

So we moved to San Diego in 1972 and have lived there ever since. And my wife died three years ago, but I still live in the same house in San Diego. I like the weather, and I like what I do, and I like the church that I'm a member of, and I've got friends there.

Do you have a lot of friends from the military?

Most of them have died - the ones that I really was well acquainted with. I have one good friend who lives in the Los Angeles area, but he's in poor health. I don't have any other strong acquaintances from the war. I read in the paper occasionally the numbers of WWII veterans that are dying every day, and there's some fantastic number like 1500 or 2000 a day. Of course, we had millions of men in that war, but still that's a lot of people.

Are you part of any veteran's organization?

Well, I belong to two associations. One is called the Military Officers Association, which includes all of the services, and the Association of the U.S. Army, which is just Army personnel. In San Diego, they each have a meeting every month. I don't participate in them too often, but anyway they do. They are well organized and do good work - sponsor ROTC scholarships.

How did your service and experiences affect your life?

Well, outside of marriage, I think the thing that affected my life more than anything else was my four years at VMI because that really established a pattern for me in the Army. Of course, I utilized what I learned there - not the military knowledge but the fact of the discipline, dedication to hard work, and integrity -- you know, basic values that I learned there. I just applied those in the military - I don't think there was anything special in the military that I didn't know. Well, I learned a lot of things of course about the jobs I had and the people.

Were there military people in your family besides you?

No.

Why do you think you were so interested?

I don't know. I like to read a lot and I guess when I was a teenager, I read all kinds of books about military life and soldiers. So yeah, I'm sure that had a big impact on what I wanted to do. I always wanted a horse and so I had a horse for about four years. Thousands of miles in a horse court.

No, as far as I'm concerned it was a wonderful career. There were some bad times, of course, but mostly good. And my family enjoyed it, and my wife was very supportive. We never had any arguments about any assignments - she was always ready to go. "We got orders to go - OK, let's go!" You know, that type of reaction.

Was she pretty adventurous -liked to travel and all of that?

Oh yes, very much so.

And how was it for your children?

Well, I often wondered about them because they never stayed in one place long enough to really make good, long-lasting friends. And it wasn't fair to them in that regard. Whenever they went to a new school, they were sort of like outcasts because people who were in the school had been together for years. And they had great cliques and groups and things like that. And they got along ok, but they just never were able to have the time to develop strong friendships. And that was the thing that I really disliked the most about my lifetime.

It was good that your wife was so ready to go…

Oh, yeah. I was really fortunate. Because some wives didn't like moving at all - military wives, that is. I hear about them all of the time. I live outside the Marine Corps Base at Camp Pendleton and a big Naval base in San Diego. The military is all around us there, and the wives get on TV occasionally. When they're being interviewed, and some of they really don't like this idea of their husbands going off - particularly without them. They don't want them to leave - they want them to stay home.